One moment in Concrete Revolutio that symbolizes my issues with it

December 23, 2016

(There are spoilers.)

When Concrete Revolutio finished in the spring, I had somewhat mixed
views of it. My views have only become more
mixed and uncertain since then, and I can illustrate some of my qualms
with the show by talking about one particular striking moment that has
come to symbolize the show's core flaws for me.

Throughout the show, Kikko Hoshino has been not so much the protagonist
(that's firmly established as Jiro Hitoyoshi) as our viewpoint
character. She is one of the most innocent characters in the main cast
and is often shielded from (and therefor surprised by) the darkness
orbiting the other characters in the Superhuman Bureau. While she has
a powerful dark side, she's only allowed to keep it briefly once it
manifests in the show; afterwards, it is forcefully stripped away from
her and she goes back to being a normal innocent person.

In the climactic fight at the end of the show, Kikko straight up kills
someone. Oh, she doesn't wind up with blood all over her, the show's a
bit more subtle than that; she consciously uses her power to teleport
the evil bad guy into an energy-draining cell that will suck away all
his power and destroy him (and she knows what the cell is and will do,
as the bad guy just carefully explained that he was going to do this to
Jiro).

Kikko doesn't react. No one blinks. This event is never referred to
again. We briefly see Kikko later (in the show's epilogue), and she is
completely unaffected by it. As far as the show is concerned, it's as if
Kikko killing someone has no effect on either her or anyone else; it's
trivial, not worth mentioning or thinking about. If Kikko was one of the
other members of the Superhuman Bureau, sure, this would be perfectly in
character; many of them are soaked in rather a lot of blood and wouldn't
blink at another death. But Kikko is different; she is the innocent.
You'd think that killing someone, and choosing to do so, would have some
sort of effect on her.

Throughout the show, Concrete Revolutio neglected Kikko. She was our
viewpoint character, but this merely made her into a mobile camera;
it didn't mean that the show was going to give her more than cursory
character development or much of a role in events. Her job was mostly
to watch as things happened around her, not to be a player. Neglecting
and sidelining Kikko was already one of the letdowns of the show; having
her do something that should have a significant impact on her but then
ignoring it was the icing on top.

(Using Kikko in the story this way was also something that CR indulged
in periodically throughout its run; every so often, Kikko would show up
to solve some problem or otherwise bail people out. At the time this
often came across as a moment of triumph for Kikko, in that the show was
finally giving her an important role, but I'm now not quite so sure of
that.)

As I've turned Concrete Revolutio over in my mind in the time since it
finished, this moment has become a symbol both of how CR treated Kikko
in general and of how CR bit off more than it could really chew.